Soriku said:
Jumpin said:
Well, Xenoblade only seemed so good because the RPG industry on home console is in bad shape. It was still a step down from Xenosaga, which in turn was a step down from Xenogears. It's the same deal with North American RPGs; they aren't really that good, they're just better than what's available. Most of the RPGs from North America have sold out the genre and introduced too many action elements - and that's the reason's people like them, not because of their RPG elements.
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I think most people would disagree. Xenoblade's story isn't as deep as Xenosaga's but I wouldn't say it's any less enjoyable. The game itself is leaps and bounds above what Xenosaga provided. Xenosaga 3 is the only really good one.
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Xenosaga Episode 3 was the best one, but all three of them were good.
I felt some of the gameplay choices were good in Xenosaga - it combined aspects of FF7, 8, 10, and 12 very well. It also had good pacing when compared to pretty much every other RPG on home console this generation. Some aspects of the battle system annoyed me though, I don't like having to move my character around all the time during battle - it is fun at first, but got very tiring after continuously having to do the same thing again and again; if I am going to have a repetetive task, I want it to be as simple as possible.
Storywise, Xenosaga, in my opinion, absolutely destroyed Xenoblade; especially the third episode of Xenosaga; and it had the best story of any RPG last generation. I just don't see how there is an argument there, even the author agrees.
Xenogears, I feel, still tops the entire history of the genre in terms of overall plot.
As someone said above, both Xenogears and Xenosaga suffered from being over-ambitious, but the amount they suffered still has them up higher than pretty much all other RPGs ever made. Xenogears tripped, but still comes in first, in my opinion.
Now, I am not saying Xenoblade is bad, just that I was disappointed with it when compared to the past; even though there were some elements that were superior - but it is the story that mattered most to me in the past games. I still DO think Xenoblade is the best RPG on home console this generation... Although, I did like several on handheld better; people have a tendency to ignore the handheld crop of RPGs this generation, which is both disappointing and curious; disappointing because there are so many and there are many great ones, and curious because saleswise, the DS is the most successful platform for RPGs in the history of videogames (123M on DS in sales, vs 92M on PS2, vs 76M on PSX).